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May 16, 2012

Reply to Eric X. Li: Cultures are not Incommensurable and the CCP is not Confucuian

Over at the Huffington Post, Rachel Beitarie interviews Eric X. Li, under the title "Democracy is not the Answer." Li, who describes himself as a Shanghai venture capitalist (which carries a bit of irony, as I will attempt to demonstrate), is a well known apologist of authoritarianism, author of such pieces as: "Why China's Political Model is Superior." In the most recent interview he engages in a bit of facile Confucius-citing, so I figured that brought his arguments into the general ambit of this blog. As you might guess, I disagree with him fundamentally.

Li's general project is to construct a kind of Chinese exceptionalism, to show that, whether in the political or economic or cultural realms, China is sui generis and, as the second title above suggests, superior to others. As an American I am quite familiar with exceptionalist type arguments and, anticipating the Chinese nationalist critique that this post is likely to inspire, I state here that I also reject claims of American exceptionalism. Whether American or Chinese or French or whatever, exceptionalist arguments are generally historically flawed, deeply flawed, and, bascially, intellectually uninteresting.

Let's go right to a big issue. Li states:

...And cultures are fundamentally incommensurate to each other, as they have been developed under vastly different conditions, including hard conditions such as geography and climate. On the abstract end, one can claim we all want certain things, such as dignity - who can argue against that? Sounds universal? Yes. But what dignity means not only can be different but also totally opposite among cultures.

Incommensurability is a big philosophical idea, with various debates surrounding it. In ethics, the notion of "incommensurable values" raises quesitons arising from the idea that: "Values, such as liberty and equality, are sometimes said to be incommensurable in the sense that their value cannot be reduced to a common measure." I think this is what Li means when he says "cultures are fundamentally incommensurate with one and other..."

But this is where he goes wrong: moving from incommensurable values to incommensurable cultures. These are not the same and the difference makes a difference.

Most problematically, Li does not define what he means by "culture." And he provides only the crudest intimation of what he is getting at, something about "geography and climate." Obviously, he wants to say that "Chinese culture" is not the same as "American culture" or "Western culture," etc. But at this level of abstraction the invocation of incommensurability makes little sense.

The basic problem is that "culture" is not a useful category for discussing value incommensurability becuase the value incommensurability problem exists within every category of "culture" that Li implies. The tensions between freedom and equality, or - to invoke a case that Chinese exceptionalists seem to focus on - between individual and collective interests, are common within "American culture" and "Western culture." We argue about them all the time.

To avoid this obvious reality, Li has to conjure straw men:

One fallacy in the modern Western political ideology is the so-called freedom of speech. It makes a presumption that speech, unlike acts, is harmless and therefore can and must be allowed absolute freedom....

A quick class in constitutional law would yield rather quickly the understanding that speech is not an absolute freedom, that is it limited in the interest of public safety ("imminent lawless action" anyone?) and other public goods (obscenity). Now, Li might argue that the parameters of free speech are wider in the US than in China, to which there are two responses: 1) this is a political, not cultural, practice that can be developed in various cultural contexts; thus, speech is freer in Taiwan than in the PRC; 2) within American culture there continues to be wide divergence among various groups on what appropriate limits on speech should be, with some American groups coming much close to a "Chinese" standard than others. Value incommensurability, in other words, is not simply an inter-cultural phenomenon.

The problem here, for Li, is the underdeveloped concept of "culture." It seems that he wants us to believe that "cultures" are distinct and impermeable and unchanging. And that is simply historically and empirically false. "Cultures" (I put it in scare quotes precisely because of the variability of any specific definition of any particular "culture") are always, and have always been, dynamic and open and overlapping. Li seems to recognize this when he writes:

This is not to say that aspects of alien cultures cannot be imported and absorbed. Buddhism came into China from the outside and became a major feature of the Chinese civilization. The success or failure of such importation depends on how consistent it is with the fundamentals of the host cultures, whether in its original or adapted forms. Marxism found deep resonance in China's Confucian egalitarianism and its modern features were much needed in China's desperate attempt to modernize. As such, Marxism's adapted forms have taken roots in modern China.

But this just killed his assertion of cultural incommensurability. If Buddhism is imported and absorbed then it becomes a local expression of the more general category of "Buddhism," and that general category provides a measure by which it can be compared to other examples of the general category - which seems to me to be the very definition of "commensurability." Same with Marxism. Now, we can argue that there are important differences between Chinese and Soviet Marxism (there are!) but that discussion operates within the framework of "Marxism" which, again, provides a set of measures to draw similarities and differences. Commensurability, again.

This shows how useless the term "culture" is. "Chinese culture" is a collection of many, many practices and ideas and beliefs. It is big and vast and complicated. Within it are its own instances of value incommensurability (which is one possible way to understand Chen Guangcheng's stance v. those who seek to repress him). In its vastness, there are similarities and differences with "American culture." Most aspects of "Chinese culture" are certainly commensurable with "American culture" or other instances of "culture" globally. (I am not quite ready to say all instances of "Chinese culture" are so commensurable - I am open to suggestions for more specific instances of incommensurability operating at something less abstract than the level of "culture"). Here are two examples:

1) Scientific research. We must recognize science as a "cultural" practice, in the conventional sense of "culture" as a set of orientations and beliefs and practices. As such it clashes with other cultural practices - i.e traditional forms of epistemology; magic; superstition; etc. Scientists in China perform research according to widely held views on proper methodology and reporting. They also perform it within a broader "Chinese cultural" context. Science, much to the delight of Chen Duxiu, has become a part of "Chinese culture," in a way that it was not at the beginning of the twentieth century. And they're good at it. Moreover, they want to be good at it - a Nobel Prize or two would be highly coveted. They may have some rather small variations to the usual practice of science, such that we could refer to something as "Chinese science." But, even if that is the case, there remains a rather well articulated measure for valuing the practice of science. Thus, that part of "Chinese culture" that expresses itself in scientific research is certainly commensurable with other forms of scientific research world-wide.

2) Women's rights. In traditional China, women did not enjoy the kinds of legal protections that are now common throughout the world. Indeed, the Communist Party made a rather big deal of how it was the liberator of women from the feudalistic, Confucian patriarchal exploitation of the past. The New Marriage Law of 1950 was seen, wtihin China, as elevating the social and political status of women, ideally at least. And today, women in China complain that their rights are not being duly protected, that the social and political gains of the revolution are deteriorating in the opening and reform period. Whatever one thinks of these particular complaints, what is notable is that they assume a general standard of "women's rights," a general standard that can be used to measure the progress or backsliding of "Chinese women's rights." Once again, we have inter-cultural - or perhaps we should say transcultural - commensurability.

We could go on, examning more partiuclar facets of "Chinese culture" to demonstrate commensurability with those same aspects of other cultures. Indeed, the work of Longxi Zhang is interesting in this regard. But one really needs to be called out: economics.

I, for one, absolutely believe that economic life is a kind of cultural practice. Markets are based upon certain cultural assumptions and, as they operate, they change other cultural practices. Contemporary China is a powerful example of this. Perhaps nothing has changed "Chinese culture" as much as economic reform of the past thirty years. And those changes have increased the economic-cultural commensurability between China and the US and the "West" and other cultural formations. Yes, of course, there are differences in how the Chinese and American economies operate. But mere difference is not incommensurability, which suggests no general standard can be used for comparison and judgment. And we know, obviously, that every day business men and investors and traders and, yes, "Shanghai venture capitalists," work hard to find ways to make big piles of money from the dynamic pattern of similarities and differences between China's economy and other economies.

Further, economics, as an intellectual discipline, basicially rejects cultural incommensurability. It claims to be a universal science (a claim that I do not really accept because they take it too far, ignoring cultural differences within a broader commensurability). Ask Justin Lin Yifu if China is economically-culturally incommensurable and I suspect he would just laugh.

And there's your irony: if Eric X. Li was right, he'd be out of a job. And the fact that he is a successful transcultural investor demonstrates that he is wrong in his assertion of cultural incommensurability.

So, what happened? Li made too sweeping a claim to try to defend the political authoritarianism of the CCP. He is trying to construct a grand China exceptionalist argument to wall off the Party from political critics, like Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng. But upon scrutiny his Great Wall of Chinese Expcetionalism crumbles. And he is left with a rather bare political apology.

To get back to the beginning of this post, Li also tries to argue that Deng Xiaoping was something of a Confucian:

In the Chinese tradition, an enduring definition of the end of political governance was articulated by Confucius two and a half millenniums ago. He called it Xiao Kang (as differentiated from Da Tong -- an unattainable ideal). In contemporary terms it can be described as a society of general peace and prosperity with a just legal order and built upon a righteous moral foundation. Interestingly enough, when Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms in 1979 he declared that the goal of the Chinese nation in the next phase of its development was to build or, perhaps more accurately, rebuild a Xiao Kang society.

It was probably no accident that Mr. Deng, in declaring China's national goal, did not rely on the modern Communist ideologies that were instrumental in the revolution that established the People's Republic, but rather reached deep into China's ancient tradition, to Confucius. Measured by the "end" as articulated by Confucius and by Deng, the current one-party state model has so far served China well, albeit with real shortcomings.

Yes, xiao kang is common in Party decriptions of economic reform. But it is, in the words of John Wong: "... fuzzy and grossly imprecise, especially when applied to a transitional economy like China." He goes on: "To an ordinary Chinese [xiao kang] may vaguely convey the feeling of being 'neither rich nor poor' or buqiong buhu". Moreover, it is not a central concept of the Analects or Mencius, no where near the importance of ren or yi or li. And it is not at all clear that xiao kang is a concept that differentiates Chinese developmental goals for those of other countries, or at least not as it is used in this China Daily op-ed:

The xiaokang idea came fromthe late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and early 1980s while he was working on the country's developmental blueprint.

The government's goal now, for 2020, is to make sure that xiaokang is everywhere and the people are well-off, in a way that is similar to developed countries in the West.

Oops - that writer needs to read the incommensurability memo...

But the big laugher here is the implication that Deng Xiaoping was a Confucian. He was not. He was a dedicated communist-nationalist. His highest priority was maintaining the institutional integrity of the CCP, which he guided as the country careened into the Great Leap Forward, and saw destroyed by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and rebuilt after 1979. It was the Party that he sought to maintain when he gave the order to kill hundreds and hundreds of people in Beijing in 1989. Those main lines of his career have nothing to do with Confucianism. Indeed, Deng was anti-Confucian in his willingness to use force to defend the Party. Xiao kang is small beer in the fullness of Deng's political life. He was much more interested in building up China's economy as the basis of national strength, something more in line with Legalist thinking. I think the turn to reform in 1979 was a great thing for many Chinese people, and Deng deserves credit for that. But he was not motivated by Confucianism.

To be clear: Confucianism is a valuable philosophy. We all can learn from it; we all should learn from it. I teach it to my students. I think about ways it applies to my own life. But it is precisely because I take it seriously that I reject its association with the Chinese Communist Party. Were Confucius alive today he would reject much of what occurs in Chinese politics and economics.

Comments

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I would like to add something really erudite to what you have said, but I really am left with nothing to say other than that you have so thoroughly kicked his ass (by every metric) that there really is nothing more to say.

Except that Confucianism isn't defined by (and confined to) whatever Confucius would find agreeable, just like Christianity isn't a simple reflection of the personal views of Jesus (and we don't even really know what Confucius would and wouldn't agree with since the Analects wasn't his own writing, just like Jesus and the Bible). As with any other school of philosophy, contemporary thinkers very much have the right to develop and re-define Confucianism.

So, while you accuse Li of "believ[ing] that 'cultures' are distinct and impermeable and unchanging", you are making the same mistake with Confucianism (and ideology in general, I guess).

Thanks for the comments...
WGJ,
I agree. I did not mean to leave the impression that "Confucianism" is simply a matter of the personal views of Confucius and has not developed and changed over the years. Clearly, it is a vast and complex universe of thought. I recognize that and have discussed that on this blog. My mistake, in this instance, was to use a simple rhetorical device - "were Confucius alive today" - to suggest that contemporary China is not really a Confucian society. While I certainly do argue that contemporary China is not a Confucian society, I understand that that involves more than the personal views of Confucius. Generally, I tend to adhere to lines of thought drawn from The Analects and Mencius when making such arguments, both of which texts involve more than the personal views of Confucius....

I think you are missing the point by trying to win some sort of imaginary linguistic debate with the controversial Eric Li who likes to exaggerate just to get under people's skins- for fun.

The key point is that China is not ready for democracy. Democracy in the American form is not for China in these fast changing times.
American Democracy is not working for America.
When you have ~1.45B people increasingly packed into crowded urban areas, the rules of society change.
Chinese values are truly different- look at the way we introduce ourselves. Organization, title, family name, first name.

Thanks for more comments...
PL,
I am not making that argument and have never argued that "American democracy" should be a model for China. But I do believe that political change in China is possible and could move in the general direction of democracy, though we must recognize the many forms that might take. And I hope for a more humane PRC government that does not crush people like Chen Guangcheng, Gao Zhisheng, Ni Yulan and others.
Matthew,
I must say that I do not believe that Samuel Huntington does a good job in explicating the notion of "culture." His conflation of many varied cultural strands into larger units of "civilization" is flawed. I blogged about it some years ago:
http://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2008/12/samuel-huntington-and-the-politics-of-civilizations.html
To which I would add that we really need to attend to various differences within Islam. It is far from a unified cultural or civilizational entity....

Thank you for your insightful critique of this patently pro-CCP argument. I still can't believe that this same basic argument was published in the NYTimes awhile back.

Furthermore let me reinforce your idea that "political change in China is possible and could move in the general direction of democracy". Stable democracies exist on every continent; their citizens worship basically every major religion; their legislatures debate daily around the world in dozens of languages. There is no reason to believe that democracy couldn't, eventually, succeed in mainland China as well--although I would never go so far as to claim that the road between here and there won't be bumpy at times.

When I first read Eric Li I was more impressed with what he didn't say than what he said. Specifically, he failed to explain his thesis: why the Communist model is better than the Western system. His criticism of Western Democracy, and particularly the American model, contained nothing intellectuals in the West have not already noted and discussed themselves. His justification for China's authoritarianism, and its better-suited qualities for the Chinese, was mostly based on vague and poorly conceived notions of uniqueness, as the author above notes.

And finally, his contention that the post-Tiananmen China we see today is far better than the disaster it would have become without the Tiananmen crackdown, is about as un-falsifiable a claim as one can make. In short, his ideas on a superior system are half-baked, and it was disappointing to realize this young man still has much sorting out to do in his own head

Like I said, I think his 'clash of civilisations' hypothesis is a bit overblown, and I agree broadly with your dissection of his distinction between a 'Sinic' culture and a 'Japanese' one. But I was actually referring more to his 'Culture Matters' series of essays, and only was attempting to use Huntington's line of argumentation to explain that 'culture' is not a semantically useless concept that can be explained entirely through other disciplines, such as political economy.

Indeed, even in your article on Huntington, you make references to 'institutions', by which I assume you mean the path-dependent game rules which led the Japanese to develop less-centralised military structures than China was able to. I would argue that there are a certain set of assumptions which underlie those institutions. What is the function of the Emperor in each system, for example? In China, the person of the Emperor was not sacrosanct - for an Emperor (and a dynasty) to be successful, he had to exercise personal control over military power. Li Shimin did. Zhao Kuangyin did (and immediately dismissed his generals after taking power). Zhu Yuanzhang did. Every Manchu ruler from Nurhachi to Qianlong did. In Japan, on the other hand, a religious tradition had developed whereby the person of the Emperor was sacrosanct; as a result, military resources could be divided amongst a number of powerful families without there being the fear of a coup which would end the ruling dynasty. I don't think this is something that can necessarily be explained in political-economic terms; you have to make reference to the values which underpin the 'rules of the game'.

Which is precisely why I think certain parts of Eric X Li's argument deserve a greater hearing, even if his conclusions are very obviously oriented toward currying political favour with the CCP. Our political culture in the West, as David Brooks pointed out in a very recent NYT op-ed, was crafted under very specific values which assumed original sin. The Jeffersonian-Jacksonian-Rousseauian rejection of original sin has dramatically altered, and not necessarily for the better, the operating assumptions under which our democracy operates in ways which I think could be very dangerous. The resurrection of the Leninist belief that with the appropriate application of will by a select few, we can remake the world in our image is an incredibly hubristic one, and I think Eric X Li is very right to call it to task - even if the alternative he proposes is no more appealing.

I have also criticized many of his views before at the hiddenharmonies site. See here:

http://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/2012/03/the-need-for-clarity/

It seems to me that much of what Eric is saying is either wrong, too general and vague to even have much substantive meaning ("Chinese model," "western model," "universal", e.g.).

However, it seems to me that he has also said somethings worth saying.

For example, he actually makes a good point that many people don't appreciate about consent and the nature of a democratic society. This is a legitimate criticism of modern western liberal democracies.

He also makes good points about the related point about responsiveness to the public's needs and demands that the Chinese government does seem to show while the US's government often dismiss public concerns.

This is likely US political and legal system have basically made corruption legal and are mainly concerned about cash from donors while the Chinese government have basically been sincere at going after corruption and are sincere about benefiting the nation.

So while I have mainly criticized Li's views before ironically on the HH blog, I will say that I'm not as black and white on Li as you appear to be and believe that he has said some things worth saying and listening to.

An interesting side-note on your brief discussion of women's' rights is that Eric X. Li is actively working within China's legal/political system to return the practice and acceptance of concubinism to China, codified by law. He's a well-respected guy, among the more technocratic/elitist set, and I half expect him to be successful in this effort.

Too often, I feel people casually espouse science without incorporating the practice of science. In the case of pro-CCP types, the penchant is for concluding that the CCP way is best, and then selectively looking for and molding arguments which happen to justify their preconceived conclusions. It's backwards-science.

I think many of the criticisms of the American system of governance in practice are justified. But those justifiable criticisms don't justify the conclusion that China can't or shouldn't move towards her own system of democracy.